#027 Lifted Up: Where Dogs & Dreams Take Flight - Jake Long

In this episode, we explore Jake Long’s adventurous path from growing up in Minnesota skating to becoming a passionate Alaskan paragliding pilot and dog owner. His story highlights the thrill of extreme sports, resilience after an accident, and living authentically and intentionally.

Key Topics:

• Jake’s transformation from aggressive inline skater to mountain and air sports enthusiast
• The role of paragliding in his recovery and self-discovery
• How his dog Pickles became his flying partner and social media star
• Challenges of the welding life in Alaska, including risks and industry insights
• Perspectives on living life fully despite the dangers, including thoughts on mortality and fear
• The importance of skill development and community in aerial sports
• Ground sports like skate joring and Nordic ice skating in Alaska
• Insights into balancing work, hobbies, and family in a high-octane lifestyle

Timestamps:

• (00:00) - Welcome and Jake’s early extreme sports background
• (02:40) - Transition from inline skating to paragliding
• (09:17) - Jake’s journey into welding and life in Alaska
• (12:52) - Paragliding as a life-saving and self-discovery tool
• (19:16) - Near-fatal paragliding accident and its impact
• (22:33) - Themes of mortality, risk, and living fully
• (26:06) - Visual experience of flying over Alaska
• (36:09) - Living with risk and thoughts on death and the afterlife
• (44:08) - Flying with Pickles, training, and dog’s adventures
• (51:24) - Jake’s perspective on high-risk activities and fear
• (72:16) - Community, inspiration, and encouraging others to pursue passions
• (75:36) - Ground sports: skate joring, ice skating, and versatility in Alaska
• (82:08) - Social media growth, influence, and storytelling
• (92:41) - Final advice: chase what lights you up and live boldly

Connect with Jake:

• Instagram
• Facebook

This episode is packed with inspiring stories of overcoming, embracing what you love, and pursuing passions in the Last Frontier. Whether you’re an adrenaline junkie or just looking to live more intentionally, Jake’s journey offers valuable lessons. 

Follow The State I Am In on social media HERE

Transcript

Manny (00:00)
So you mentioned that you were from Minnesota. Yeah. Originally. was growing up there? Like growing up in Minnesota, where I'm from was like living in Fairbanks. Like it was really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. ⁓ I lived right on the shores of Lake Superior. So was kind of like, if, if, there was a town like Girdwood with the weather of Fairbanks on a beach. my gosh. So like we had big Sandy beaches and we'd have big bombfires as kids all the time.

That's where we did all of our, you know, ridiculous kid parties and yeah, we'd had, we'd make huge fires out of driftwood to where we would set up like a trebuchet type thing to launch logs into it because you couldn't just pick up these logs. You'd have to like set up things and yeah, launching logs by trebuchet. It was kind of the source, you know, it wasn't like launching in the air. We had to like make structures to flip logs into the fire.

And we dig giant couches in there. And you know, yeah. Imagine like teenage party kids from up here with nothing to do, but with beaches, you know, in colds and hot. Yeah. It was a good place to grow up. Did you have siblings? I have one brother who's a year younger than me. Okay. Cool. You guys are like rebel rousers or no? Oh, we are complete opposites. Okay. He is, um, the definition of like a millennial basement dweller who like just plays video games and nothing else. And I'm like,

I'm going to hike three mountains a day and fly off of them with my dog and stuff like that. like total opposites. Gotcha. Um, yeah, dude, think it was so cool that speaking of jumping off mountains with your dog, you found, you found the podcast, which was so cool to get a message from you. I'm like, who is this Jake and the flying pickles that sending me a message right now on Instagram. And, and then I look up your profile and I'm like,

This is freaking amazing. Yeah. We have a good time. It's, it's, it's obviously, yeah. You know, I'm talking about you, huh? If you're listening, I got pickles in the studio, the man, the myth the of the legend himself. yeah. Say hi pickles. It's very proud, very tall and proud. for sure.

Good boy. And in two seconds of looking at your, your profile, your reels, what you're doing, ⁓ out in Alaska, just enjoying it to the max and getting a perspective that I don't think a lot of people get. It was a pretty easy yes for me to be like, yeah, let's do this thing and find out this a little bit more about this story and how this all happened. So to say, I'm happy that you and pickles are here. Total, total like understatement, man. It's freaking awesome. So yeah, I'm super stoked to be here. And,

podcasts are fun. You make it all look so good. You do such a good job. And how could I not come on your show? Like, look at this. I appreciate that so much. And the first four legged guests, co-guests, co-hosts, guess with pickles. That's pretty awesome. Welcome to the show pickles. so let's talk about kind of those early influences that early life for you. Like, so obviously kind of let the cat out of the bag. You, you.

paraglide, do some kind of extreme stuff here in Alaska. Was your childhood kind of marked by that? Were you like out seeking adventure and doing stuff like that? little bit. mean, growing up, ⁓ in the nineties, it was all about, ⁓ you know, extreme this and extreme that and X games and stuff like that. And I was totally sucked into that world of, skating, ⁓ BMX stuff, all of that stuff. Totally interested me. And I've just always been an action sports enthusiast my entire life.

And I kind of thought that would always, ⁓ stay to, just kind of those sorts of sports, not really air sports, but then when I moved up here to Alaska, it was more of like, ⁓ backcountry skiing and snowboarding and that sort of world. but, but as my younger years, I was all about aggressive inline skating. I was grinding handrails and just, lived that life all the way. ⁓

It got to the point where we were teenagers and we were organizing like full on street contests where there'd be like 200 people there. And the cops would come because there's 200 people at a church skating a handrail and they're like, what's going on here? Who's in charge? And it's like me and my buddy at 16 years old. And, so yeah, we were always that that's where it kind of all stemmed from was aggressive inline skating and biking and stuff like that. Do you remember the Disney show channel or movie called brink?

yeah. yeah, of course. That's like the only movie we have. know, ⁓ Brink was awesome. I was, I had a much more conservative phase of, like, of like inline skating, rollerblading and stuff like that did not, I wasn't really good. I could probably, I could drop into a half pipe and that was like the extent of what I could do. ⁓ but that's cool that you know about Brink cause I remember, I remember that movie being pretty awesome for, for the time, but.

Anything else besides a, so like skateboarding too, or like any other, you would call extreme. ⁓ that was really into downhill skateboarding for awhile. ⁓ racing cars, downhills and got hurt pretty bad doing that. I like dislocated my shoulder and like twisted it around in a circle and I was kind of done skateboarding in that fashion. Okay. In that sense. ⁓ but I've just always kind of been drawn towards the.

more adrenaline side of activities. I grew up a hunting and fishing too, but like, that's just like too slow for me. I mean, I know we live up here. It's like saying a grown man doesn't hunt or fish. It's like, what's wrong with you? But I just, it just doesn't interest me as much. It's speed. For sure. a different speed. I'm like a rage through the forest to smell the roses and maybe you'll catch one or two roses. I'm not going to just slowly walk through and smell all the right now. I'm like a rage through. Gotcha. Sort of guy. Cool.

what were your parents like with you having that bend towards the extreme and the adrenaline? they like supportive of it? they like, absolutely not. they did not like it at all. my parent, my dad is an orthopedic, trauma surgeon. anytime I would break like a wrist or something, which I did so many countless times, he'd, he'd make me watch like the surgery on DVD and be like, this is what you're going to do because he just had access to that media.

Yeah, they were not too supportive. Still not, still not supportive of the things I do, but, ⁓ I think they're proud of me now, but, yeah, they did not, they were not excited about that. We weren't even allowed to have fireworks as kids. And how, and how did that work for you? Mom and dad look at me now, jumping off mountains. Yeah. ⁓ that's funny though. I guess I didn't make the connection. Yeah. With your dad being an orthopedic surgeon, he's like, don't you know what I do and what I see every day?

He'd be like, we just put another kid in a wheelchair this week. Yeah. You're not allowed to go on trampolines. Oh man. I can tell you what the trampoline parks, I'm sure give a steady supply of business. do. My dad, my dad thinks they should be outlawed. Yeah. And, so many broken femurs.

so grew up in Minnesota, live in that life. Uh, what, at what point did the transition to Alaska come about like permanently? Well, uh, I was so lucky as a kid that I knew what I wanted to do when I was going to grow up. I always wanted to be a welder.

I was like watching TV, like monster garage with like Jesse James and they're like, west coast choppers, choppers. And, ⁓ I didn't necessarily want to like build cars or like motorcycles or anything, but like every time there's like, ⁓ like those mad scientists with all the sparks in the background or like the people welding. was like, I want to do that. And, at this high school that we went to and, you know, moved around a lot, but settled in Minnesota.

They had a really good welding program and I just took it and just went off with it. And it just completely changed my life. And I was like, I'm going to be a welder period. And, ⁓ then in my like later teenage years, formative years, I had it set in my mind that once I turned 18, I was moving and going somewhere cool. Like I was going to go to, I was either going to go to Colorado or some other places. Montana was in my mind. ⁓ but.

You know, as soon as I, it sounds cheesy, but I read into the wild. yeah. And I was like, I'm going to Alaska. That's what it is. Got him. And, and then, yeah. And then I was like, I'm going to go to Alaska. I'm going to go to welding school and I'm going to go weld on the pipeline. Period. I've always been like, this is what I'm going to do. And I just tailor my life to it. And, ⁓ yeah, that's what I did. I moved up and I went to UAA and lived in the dorms and went to welding school.

And they had a pretty decent program back then. Now they don't really have a program, but, ⁓ and then I just kept going with it and going with it. And, ⁓ yeah, I kind of didn't, I didn't weld on the pipeline, but I spent a lot of time on the slope and I've just been in the welding industry ever since I say I've been welding at least part-time since I was 15 years old. Dang. So that's a long time, man. Yeah. Have you, and are you still doing that today? Yep. I'm still in the.

I'm still in the welding industry. Okay. Cool. Yeah. ⁓ and what is that lifestyle like? Cause I talk, we got a lot of people that work in, know, in that industry in Alaska and. know, I come across these people and I know it's like, I work two weeks on two weeks off, or, know, there's some people that live down in the lower 48. They don't, and they come and work up here, but they, you know, don't live here. They, they live somewhere else. They work up here.

⁓ what, what's that been like for you? For me, what's it like working in being a welder? I mean, all those stories you hear of like dirty, nasty welders, that's all true, but we really have a lot of fun, honestly. And we up here being a welder in Alaska, there's such a romantic idea tied behind welding because of the pipeline and all that stuff. It's like, it's like you tell people you're a welder here in Alaska and they get it. You, you say you say you're a welder and like lower 48. They're like, well, are you at a muffler shop?

Are you at a junk yard? It's, it's a completely different idea that people get when you tell them you're a welder. And, um, but being a welder up here, you get the chance to really weld at the high end of the game. You know, like the height of my career, the coolest thing I ever did, uh, I was up on the slope and we were welding on live lines that have natural gas or other products flowing in them while you're welding on them.

And you know how thick it is and you know, if you mess up, you're, you're going to blow through and bad things. You know, it's unlikely. Of course we wouldn't do it if it was likely, but, ⁓ yeah, that's like, welding up here is on a new level and you really get to, ⁓ do some cool things up here.

What about the challenges? know that sometimes that lifestyle can be hard on families. can be hard with like, you know, I know that there's some guys that go up there and they, they get introduced to like addictions they didn't have before then just because the lifestyle, it's a lot of work. It's demanding. It's hard. So did you have any experience with that as far as like the uglier side of that lifestyle? yeah. I mean, ⁓ I'm on my second marriage. like I said earlier, I'm an alcoholic in recovery. ⁓ all of the bad things are true.

Totally. you see guys that have some really bad home life. ⁓ you see guys that have really bad addiction problems. see drugs on the slope. You've I've seen, I've seen people OD on the slope thing. Like one time recently there was a guy that OD during a phase three and they, hit the whole camp with the drug tests. you know, we were not saints in this industry, but there's

mostly good people. You know, there's bad apples everywhere you go, but the welding industry up here, it's all, all the rumors are true, but there's good people too. And there's definitely some hard living people that are in this industry. You're sure. What's your advice to maybe the kid that was in your spot, you know, maybe 16, 16 years old looking ahead, like, Hey, I want to, I want to make a decent living, have a good career.

I live in Alaska. What's your advice to them about getting into, into that world? Uh, kids now in, in 2025, probably have a lot easier getting into the industry than maybe I did 10, 15 years ago, because there's not a lot of younger guys that are trying to actually get into this stuff. Um, you could basically just go up to the shop and be like, Hey, I want to sweep her floor and I'm going to put my phone in my car and you'll never see me on my phone. You're getting hired immediately right then, you know?

But if you're going to want to be a welder, ⁓ go weld pipe, learn how to weld pipe and learn how to weld stainless and shoot for the high end of welding. Don't just shoot to be just a welder. Go all the way to the top. Be it be the guy like me who got called to go weld on live lines and there will be a great life for you in that. But also have your exit plan. You can't weld forever. You can, but man, it's going to wear you out. You know, have a good exit plan.

plan to become like a ⁓ quality control guy later or do something else. But, ⁓ you totally can weld forever, but try to have an exit plan, but just guys nowadays just go to the shop and ask, and you're probably going to get hired on immediately because there's just not a lot of everybody wants to be Tik-Tok or famous now. You know, there's not the young, young guys trying to take your job. ⁓

The work ethic, think, has likely changed. ⁓ or what guess people are interested in has changed. The trades, I'm hoping, make a resurgence because there's such a need for them. I hope that's brewing. I feel like it is because it feels like there is a gap. It feels like there is a gap. ⁓ Because when I was a kid, there was a ⁓ good portion, I also grew up in a really small farming community town, but a good portion of my...

high school classmates went on into the trades, plumbers, farmers, welders. I mean, it was standard to take welding in the town that I grew up. So I learned how to stick weld and MIG weld. like my senior project was like, you get to build whatever you want to and sell it. And so a lot of people gravitated towards that. And a lot of those people went off to make great careers. And somewhere along the line, and maybe they still do that there in that small town, but it seems like there's a demand for that.

So somewhere along the line, there's like this gap. So I hope it's kind of going to make a resurgence. can kind of feel, whispers of that in the industry right now. Like at my shop, there's a lot of young guys. It's like, there's not a lot of guys that are like in their early thirties. It's like, you're either late mid thirties, forties, like, you know, our generation or you're like 19. So I think it's happening. Cool. Good. That's lots of girls are getting into it too. We had a lot. We had some.

We've, we've had some girls come through the shop and they've all been great. Like if you're a girl out there listening and you want to weld, totally do it. Awesome. I just was talking to, ⁓ Megan Merritt. has a, as an animal rescue out in sterling. She said that she went off to school to be a mechanic. And then like, which is awesome. Cause she was just like, I want to know how things work and went off to, she doesn't do that now, but, ⁓ it was cool. I don't, I don't hear that very often. You know, women like, you know, pursue those kinds of traits. So that's pretty cool. So.

Let's talk about paragliding, man. you say you're involved in welding and working on the slope, living that lifestyle. You had this childhood of extreme sports or, you know, kind of living on the edge that it's finding that adrenaline, like doing that kinds of stuff, doing those kinds of activities. When did that?

Did that make a resurgence in adulthood or were you always kind of dabbling or how did, how did that always kind of dabbling? Like, um, when I moved up here to Alaska, I got really into backcountry snowboarding and rock climbing and stuff. Um, I kind of always had it in the back of my mind that like, was going to start skydiving. And then there was this movie that came out with red bull and these guys were like skiing and speed flying off of mountains and stuff. And they were doing like barrel rolls. And I was like,

Are they really going completely upside down on that wing and like just flying around? Like, and I was like, man, maybe I could do that one day, but I was always a snowboarder and I like, didn't think about skiing. ⁓ so yeah, I kind of always knew in the back of my mind, like when I was going to retire and the kids were out of the house, I was going to be a skydiver. And, ⁓ my ex wife bought me a tandem jump for father's day. And I went and did that and, ⁓ out in Palmer, you go on a skydive in Palmer, you see the glacier. Like I forgot we were going to jump.

I was like, Oh, look at this. We're flying over these huge mountains and, and then 10 minutes later, we're like getting ready to jump out. was like, Oh, Oh yeah. Uh, that's why this isn't just a sightseeing trip. And, um, of course it was better than what everybody says it is. And, um, and then not too long after that, I had, went through a horrible movie style divorce, just, just terrible. So, um, I was like, I'm going to skydive now. I'm going to jump off of stuff. And, um, it was.

2020. So COVID, ⁓ the skydiving centers were closed and I had a friend who, you wouldn't think was a paragliding guy. ⁓ he was like, just go paragliding. And I was like, huh? So I searched up like on Google paragliding schools up here and found one and I called him and he's like, yeah, come out tomorrow. We're open. So I was like, huh? All right. So we went out and, ⁓ did some ground practice like.

For like eight hours that day and like jumped off this tiny little hill. Okay. And just, it just completely changed my whole life and, ⁓ man, just went into it as hard as he could. You knew at that moment, just that from that one exposure one day of just jumping off the little hill, you're like, yeah, this is going to be freaking awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And, had some good, had a good instructor, you know, who had also been through just a horrible divorce.

he had been through some hard times too. Okay. And I had a lot of free time due to the divorce. So we were just hanging out every day, getting after it. And I'd always been outdoorsy and adventurous, but I never really knew like people are hiking mountains every day.

You know, there's people who hike flat top every single day and you can do that easily. And that's not too audacious. And I was like, man, I just want to fly every day. And I was like, you can't do that. That's crazy. But people totally do that. So I just made that like my complete new life and identity of going after it. And, ⁓ yeah, never looked back. That's awesome, dude. Do you think that like having that guy, one, you, got introduced to this awesome.

like extreme activity that kind of itched that need that you had as a young adult. But then he also was going through some similar stuff as you were during that time. Do you think it was kind of like therapeutic, like that whole entering into that whole world? Definitely. Especially because I was with my ex-wife for 10 years. I got married young, had kids young. I'm 34 and I have a 12 year old kid, an eight year old.

When, when you have your life set up like that, my entire friend group and everybody I knew was tied to my ex-wife and all that stuff. like having a new community to go to who didn't have all those preconceived notions of you're this bad person because of what somebody else said. That was really important and helpful for my recovery of like finding out who I was again. You know, you get a divorce like that and it just strips your identity to zero and then less than that. And, um,

It really helped me build my life back up. I think paragliding saved my life for sure. Dang. That's awesome, man. ⁓ Talk about just that first. So you talked about like the small hill that you were learning, you know, training on doing some groundwork. I'd asked you earlier if there's like a tandem version of like paragliding, once you like get up in elevation, you're like, we're going to jump off this mountain now. Like, how do you ease into that? Or is it just you?

trusting what you learned on the ground for that first jump. Well, you start off slow. You know, the first hill I flew off of was like two second flight, you know, and, it's that car got seen park in Anchorage. There's like a grassy little field with a little tiny hill and, You just get your practice laps in there and it just starts off slow. You're not like base jumping off cliffs right away. You know, that, that takes years and years of dedication. You're not flying with your dog right away. You know, ⁓

But it took a, it took a like six months to get certified and, ⁓ trained up to the point where you can go by yourself safely and not have a, not have a problem. Cool. What was the first jump where you're like, this is a legit, this is like pretty legit what I'm about to do right now. This isn't just a two second flight. This is like,

Holy crap. I felt like that immediately. Like if you're just standing on the ground and you bring the wing up, you feel that that thing wants to take you. You feel the energy of it you can control that. You can give it more, take it away and just sitting there doing ground practice with a little bit of wind to get the wing up off the ground. It's you can tell you can feel the magic. You can feel the energy. If you're like, man, this thing is powerful and it is, it's designed to take your body and fly it.

Yeah. So it's going to be strong enough to pick you completely off the ground. Of course. So like, even before I made it off the ground, I was like, this thing is like a magical beast that you tame and get to ride. That's crazy. ⁓ you said six months to be certified. So is that just like, what do you need a certification? Like, is that you?

You need a certification if you want to live long, ⁓ the laws are kind of wide open. They're it's kind of like an experimental aircraft type where you don't really need a license. You can buy one of these off Facebook marketplace for close to nothing. And yeah, you can go out and you're not, might not get any legal trouble, but if you want to be good and live a long life, you're going to want to get certified and you can get certified in a much quicker way out of state.

some people go down to Utah and they'll get it done in like three weeks, four weeks, something like that. But up here, ⁓ it's spicy. It's Alaska. And, I'm very thankful that I learned up here where I live because a lot of people do go down South and they learn, ⁓ quickly having the dog in the shows. An interesting dynamic. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Pickles walking around guys. Getting used to the studio. but yeah, it took me like a summer to get certified and then, ⁓

Yeah. And, and when you, when you get certified up here, you kind of get introductions to the sites that are here and, know, kind of the ins and outs of flying in the mountains, because that's what we're doing is mountain flying and, ⁓ yeah.

what's people's feedback to you about paragliding? Like when you started to get into it and people are like, you're ⁓ getting ⁓ certified in this and you're training in this, did people be like, Jake, what the heck are you doing? Or was it positive?

One of my friends said, that's the most Jake thing I've ever heard. cause I've always kind of been adventurous. paragliding definitely is for everybody. You don't have to be a nut to do it, but, ⁓ of course my parents weren't too stoked on it. ⁓ but it's all been pretty good. mean, I think everybody wishes they could do this stuff, but they maybe think they can't, maybe they think they don't have the courage to do it. And, ⁓

When somebody that you actually know gets to do it, you're like, wow, you look at the whole process of a different, you're like, I actually know a guy that does that. Is there a lot of options for people to like look into, like to, ⁓ go out for the first time or like to do exactly what you did in Alaska specifically?

there is a couple of schools up here. ⁓ they are kind of hard to get into because there's such a big demand for people to come get into it. But yeah, if anybody DMS me, I'll take you out on some little Kiting adventures, see if it's for you because it is, ⁓ everybody can do it, but it's definitely not for everybody either, you know, but there is some schools up here that provide that service.

Cool, have you found other people that, like you guys go out together and you're like, hey, do you wanna go, is it like one of those type of events where you're like, hey, I'm gonna go paragliding and then you have a bunch of people that you text, you guys go do it together, is it that kind of thing or is it more solo? It is kind of a solo sport but also we go out in big groups all the time. We have a a Slack.

I don't if you heard of that app. I think I have. Yeah. we have like a local message board that has a couple hundred people in it with maybe 50 people who are super active and like going out all the time. ⁓ we'll invite people all the time, but sometimes I just go by myself to clear the head. Honestly, I'm a, I'm a solo guys most of the time, but yeah, we go out in groups all the time too. The other day we just flew off of Orca, which is right next to a mountain.

And, uh, the mountain in right next to Alyeska and we had like seven people there, I think, or six people there. And that, that was a kind of a big group in, in hatch or pass in the summer. It's pretty normal to see like 20 of us sometimes, like a lot of people will go up there and be like, Oh, I saw you and all these people out there. And it was like, yeah, well, when it's good, it's good. know, yeah. Do you have to be mindful of weather, wind of, know, I think of people that.

I know people that have boats and I'll be like, Hey, it looks like it's going to be sunny this weekend. You want to go fishing? And they're like, dude, it's way more than just the sunshine. Like I got to see what the wind's doing. I got to see like what the waves are doing, like how, how big a swells are we looking at? What's your approach when it comes to like conditions? ⁓ yeah, you're basically half weatherman. If you're going to be a pilot, you know, it's just like flying airplanes or any aircraft. ⁓ you really got to pay attention to the weather.

I'm all about looking at the wind at the elevation you're going to take off from. So usually you got to like, look at the weather at 3000 feet and at that time of day and what's happening and can you really trust the forecast based off of small little things that all line up and you know, it's a big state with, we're trying to look at a small area of weather. So you really got to get good at navigating what the forecast says and turning that into some results for yourself.

But, yeah, we are obsessed with weather and it's just, wife will be like, are you weathering again? I'm just like, you know, checking different things and doing all this stuff, but it's mostly wind. are surfers of the wind, so we need to pay attention to the wind and, like what's the sun doing? You know, no, no rain, of course, but, ⁓ yeah. Okay. Weather's very important. What is your.

headspace like up there. feel like when you decide to put a kite on your back and jump off a mountain, you get a perspective of Alaska that few get to experience. So I think that that's gotta be kind of like a next level experience for you if you wanna share what that's like. It's just pure magic every single time. Doesn't matter how long the flight is or how high off the ground.

how low to the ground. It's just magic every single time. Like I have to stop myself from saying magic, like 30 times in a row. Like when I talk about flying, ⁓ the way I like to describe it is like, if a human could fly the way he would fly is he would take a couple of steps, gain a little speed and just jump forward like this with your arms out. Like I'm flying Jack and Titanic like, and that's like the body position you need to mimic to, make it perform.

the best and it's just, you know, you're, you're get a little speed and you jump with your chest forward and you're just in it. That's awesome. It's just beautiful. Every single time, like a dream, every single time. That's wild, man. How high are you at 3000 feet? Well, we, the mountains we take off from are usually at 3000 feet. So that's like the, the wind altitude, because you know, different altitudes of wind's going to be different.

The highest I ever got off the ground was about eight and a half thousand feet. And we took off at like 1200 at the 1500 feet. Um, and that's from, know, finding thermals and ridge lift and certain things that the wind are doing, you know, hot air rises. And if you find some hot air rising, you're going to go up in it. And, um, that's the highest I ever got off the ground, somewhere around 8,000 feet, but.

People have gone way higher. The world records, like almost 30,000 feet. Like you get stuck in a big cloud, like a big storm cloud where, there's like thunder and lightning happening, like big, tall cumi There is insane lift coming up through there and you can get stuck in that and you're going to go up for like thousands of feet a minute. It feels like you're falling upwards. Dang. And, ⁓ yeah.

there's some pretty wild things that happen there. It's a whole nother story. There's some stories you can look up and there's some documentaries about people who've gotten stuck and climbing really high and freezing up there and bad things. Yeah. Yikes We're going to get into some like talking about risk and mortality and kind of your view on death and stuff like that here in a little bit. feel like when you people that do high risk activities,

For me, that's one thing I consider, is that like, you could be, I could potentially die doing this. You know, so we'll get into that in a little bit. ⁓ What I do want to find out is, at one point, did you think, you know who would really love this, is my dog. I didn't really think about it, honestly, until, ⁓ like I, like my wife had, my

My wife now has dogs and I kind of grew up with some dogs, but I never had a dog of my own. And I kind of thought that at the point of my life where I could have got a dog, which was pretty recently, ⁓ I didn't think I'd be a good dog owner because I'm flying a hundred or more flights a year. That means I'm out hiking in the mountains a hundred or more times a year. That dude's pretty busy. I didn't have time for a dog. And then I saw some other people who were flying with their dogs on the internet and I was like,

I could just take them with. And then I realized too, like I could just fly off of chill spots that I already fly at. And, uh, he could just run on the ground and chase me, you know, like a skier, like a dog skiing. And, um, then I was like, man, yeah, I really could get a dog and I can make this happen. It would be fun. It would be rad. And I didn't even like, really think about filming or anything for a long time. And, uh, but yeah, it's just, I didn't really think I'd be a good dog owner.

And then I realized I could fly with my dog and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna be a good dog. So enter pickles into the chat. Um, your Instagram handles Jake and the flying pickles. And I realized within two seconds who pickles was. Yeah. And that's the dog that you fly with. Did you, when you had this idea was pickles already in the picture or did this come later on?

⁓ I knew before I got a dog, I was going to fly it with my dog. Okay. ⁓ and his name, he was already named pickles when I got, I was like, I'm dumb enough to keep that name. Yeah. Come over here. And, ⁓ yeah, I just kind of knew that, ⁓ if I did have a dog, he would have to fly. I just kind of knew already going into it that it was going to happen. Okay. Talk about pickles, age breed where the story of, know, how he got in came into your life.

Yeah. Like I, like I said earlier, I was, ⁓ was heavy alcoholic being an oil field welder. Basically that means you're an alcoholic and, ⁓ I wasn't drinking and there was, an event happening for St. Patrick's day. And I just went to the rescue place and he picked me and, he's now two years old and he's a Belgian Malinois and he's squealing, walking around the studio and, ⁓ yeah, he's, he's a good boy.

Isn't that right? Um, but yeah, he's very chill for the breed. You know, the mallinois you see on the internet are pretty crazy. And, um, that also comes with, you know, we live a really active life. So you kind of got to be a Malinois human. You gotta be a little bit crazy to have one, but, um, yeah, he's just been great. Best dog in the world changed my, there's probably nothing that changed my life more.

then getting divorced, starting paragliding, getting pickles and welding in the oil field up here. honestly, that's awesome. So talk about that first flight with pickles. mean, you kind of had a, you know, you eased into paragliding. ⁓ what was the, the train up for, for pickles to, join you? Yeah, it was, I knew it was going to have to be slow. ⁓ we put like 10 different tricks together. It started out with.

All the basic normal stuff you have to have super down, like sit, stay, come heal all that stuff. And then I trained him to run in between my legs on command. That's very important. ⁓ and then to sprint in between my legs on command. And we did that by rollerblading and having him go in between my legs and having him pull me. I would say, let's fly, fly, fly, fly. And he would chase and, you know, go. he'd know to run full speed in between my legs, because that's not a very normal trick to teach a dog.

But then, um, once we were kind of doing that stuff at the same time, I would take them with me, kiting practice Hills so that he could get used to like being around the wing. Because when it picks up off the ground, it's like a loud, know, it scared them like the first time only after that, he was never scared again, because I picked the wing up and I ran off a hill and he had to chase me and he loved it. And,

You know, ever since that first time of him being scared of the sound, he has never been scared since, but I knew it was going to take a lot of training and like 10 different tricks put together. And we just took it slow and did all this stuff. And it was fun every second, you know, there was no like work, you know, we were just having fun and, but it, you know, just doing all that stuff slowly and building up to it. By the time we got the first time, you know, having him, him harnessed up and on with me.

He knew exactly what to do and it just went off like without a hitch and has been going off without a hitch every single time. And he's never been scared. He's never looked like he didn't want to go, uh, him walking around the studio. Now he seems more nervous than when we were, when, whenever we're flying. And, if he ever was scared or nervous or didn't like it, we would just not do it. The internet fame is not worth torturing your dog. Yeah. Uh,

I've seen the videos ⁓ on your Instagram of him flying with you and what it looks like is if you've ever seen sled dogs, like when the harnesses come out and they just get amped up, because they freaking love running and they're amped up for it. They're yelping, they're barking, they're jumping up and down and Pickles looks the same way

he reminds me of like a sled dog that's amped up to like get on, ⁓ like to pull a sled and, and then you, you hook them in and then it's off to the races. And then he's just, it looks like he's sitting in midair just like, is awesome. Even I'm blown away at how chilly is in the air. Our longest flight. ⁓

We were blessed with like an hour and 35 minute flight and hatcher passes summer. So we were utilizing lift and going up and lift. He was trying to take a nap and he was getting kind of over it. He was like, I'm so bored. She'll, he's like curling his head back, looking at me and, he was trying to nap and stuff, but, ⁓ yeah, he's just.

He's just so chill and even if I pick up the backpack or even if I say it now, he'll go crazy. His ears just perked up right now when you said that. Yeah. With anything, gosh, anytime you do stuff on the internet that has a significant following, you're to have people that are like rooting you on and like, this is freaking amazing, dude. Thanks for sharing this with us. And then you're going to have the opposite of the haters come out of the woodwork. What's your experience been like with that?

yeah, we get our fair share of haters. I try not to get too involved with them. It's hard not to though. It's like, I didn't like try to make this happen. This internet fame. I didn't think it was going to happen. I'm just surprised and grateful to be here. And I've just grew up being a skater kid making my own videos and I just kept doing my stuff, making videos and, ⁓

But yeah, there's a lot of people who think that dogs should not be doing the things that I'm doing. And, ⁓ it, gotta, it's some cultures just treat dogs different, you know, like down in Mexico, street dogs are, you know, that's a thing. Could you imagine a bunch of street dogs up here? Like people aren't like that. ⁓ We treat our dogs a lot differently and, ⁓ we train our dogs to do cool stuff. And, but yeah, I get a lot of haters sometimes. I bet it's, it's interesting.

But you're, said earlier that you're, saw someone doing this on the internet too. So you're like not, you're not the first person to ever put your strap, your dog in a harness and do this. Definitely not. ⁓ I would say there's probably only about three or four of us that do this. And, ⁓ there's like one other guy, other than me that do it a lot and post a lot about it. And, we're, we're good friends on the internet. He's a rad dude. I'm sure he'll see this. ⁓

Yeah, I kind of, you know, I kind of knew that you could fly with the dog before I even got it. So, but, but yeah, there's a couple other people that do it. It's not that common. ⁓ a lot of people will not do it very often with their dog either. we do it quite often because, ⁓ I'm usually speed flying, like a small wing, high performance, close to the ground, doing barrel rolls and stuff. And the dog is the time for me to be chill and, ⁓ just take my dog on a walk. And that's just how we go for a walk.

which is wild to me. I don't know how dogs communicate, but Pickles will meet my dog Thor later on today. And I don't know if he's gonna be like, hey dude, so how your walks go? Cause I can tell you how mine go. And my dog's gonna be super jealous or he'll look at him the same like, holy crap dude, you're a celebrity. Yeah, like the number one comment we get is like, none of the other dogs are gonna believe his stories, know, stuff like that. No one's gonna believe him. And yeah, it's cool.

you have a couple other dogs too. Pickles. Isn't your only, isn't your only dog. Do you have any waiting in the, you know, any others that you would might train to take out? Yeah. Um, we just got another Malinois puppy.

We have a 10 week old Malinois puppy and, that's, that's how you would think it would be nice and crazy. ⁓ we have another healer who was like 12 years old and we just put a dog down like six months ago, four months ago, and that was another healer. you know, very good dog rest in peace, Daisy. Yeah, it's always rough, but yeah, we're a Malinois family. ⁓ once you kind of get a good, ⁓ high intelligence.

high intelligence working dog. There's just a magic to them. know, there's something about them and, uh, we're a Malinois family for sure. That's awesome. Let's take a break real quick. Yeah. Stretch the

All right. So I mentioned it a little bit earlier with, you know, people that do extreme stuff. I mean, I have a weird fascination with it. I feel like my view of death is like kind of interesting. I like to read what like the Stoics say about death.

I'm a Christian, like I know, like I believe in God, I think there's an afterlife and I still have a weird fascination with death and kind of fear of death. And I look at people that do extreme stuff and I'm like, I wonder if they're just like, whatever happens, happens. Or do you confront it? Do you not think about it? Like, what is your perspective on doing these like high risk things or at least...

Maybe it's not high risk because of the things that you've taken into consideration. But for me, the person that doesn't jump off mountains with a kite on their back, seems like a pretty high risk thing. Like what is your view on all that? Yeah, we could talk for six hours, 10 hours, but, I have always done kind of high considered high risk activities. ⁓ you definitely use your skills.

to mitigate all that risk. But also, if I sat here and told you I didn't think about death and that I wasn't scared of death, that's a complete lie. If I ever died paragliding or died in the mountains and if anybody ever said he died doing what he loves, that is bullshit. Nobody thinks they're gonna die doing this. Nobody wants to die doing this. Really, it's like a celebration of life is how I kinda look at it.

there's this awesome documentary about the first base jumper who's also a huge Christian that I suggest everybody watch. It's a sun, sunshine superstar or something like that. And he always said, we're glorifying God to do this. I'm not a very religious man, but it's just an expression of the human spirit. You know, we've always wanted to fly and we've made it happen now safely. And now we do it for fun. Like what would.

What would the ancient, you know, people think of us now, you know, what would Da Vinci think? You know, but I have deaf, I definitely think about death a lot and it's, it's not like I'm scared of it, but I definitely think about it probably more than the average person because of the things I've done. And because I've, I've seen somebody have a fatal accident. I watched somebody go in is what they call it. I've crashed myself and.

In that moment of when I crashed and I was unconscious, it, I think of it as if I died. A lot of us call it our second birthday when we have a crash that is like that. And my second birthday, ⁓ I crashed up at bird Ridge. I, ⁓ chose to fly off of this site. like every good accident, there was like 10 bad things mixed together, but I made a bad call.

And I was knocked out for a long time and it was just pure nothingness. And, ⁓ it was like the next thing I had to do was like, I'm crashing. This is the next thing. but the thing about death is it completely changes doing things like this completely changed the way you look at living your decision-making. Like watching people stay in line at McDonald's to get food. You're like, that seems more ridiculous than what I'm doing.

to me now, you know, but I think death is something that's guaranteed. We all know that. ⁓ how are you going to live your life? You know, we just, we just drink up the cup of life as hard as you can all day, every day. And, ⁓ I used to kind of like force myself not to think about it, but I had this conversation with my best friend, Tyler in Minnesota. And he was like, I think you just don't care about it. I think you don't care if you live or die.

And I was like, man, I never really thought about it because I don't, I think that when you die, it's not your choice. Nobody thinks, I'm going to die now, unless you're suicidal when that's a different issue. So in the moment I was like, well, yeah, I don't care because it's not my choice when I die, when I go. ⁓ but that really, that just, that question really made me think about things a lot more.

And, ⁓ yeah, I guess the answer of what I think about death is it's unavoidable. ⁓ it's, you're not going to be able to choose when you do it. You can twist your ankle on top of your stairs and tumble down and die right now, or, know, car crashes or anything like that. But I'm jumping off a cliff. You know, it, to say that I don't think about it is a complete lie. and really.

The feeling that comes up most when I think about death is like confusion because after watching somebody crash and have a fatal accident, it's like, what's it going to take for me to stop? And the answer is nothing. I will do this till I can't. And that's kind of a confusing thing to think about. Like, like if you watched your buddy crash on a motorcycle, you'd probably sell your motorcycle. Most people would.

I could never think like that. I would be like, I'm going to ride my motorcycle every day because of it, because he can't, know? And, ⁓ yeah, just it's, it's a confusing feeling, you know, it's like I've accepted death, but I've accepted also that I'm going to live as hard as I can and do life exactly the way I want to. And that's, this, this is just the way I want to live. want to go out paragliding. I want to enjoy the mountains.

The way I want to enjoy them. And I hope I never crash and burn again. And if I do don't say I died doing what I loved because what I love is living. Honestly, that's kind of long winded, but man, it's just, it's just a weird thing. awesome. Uh, there's a, there's a documentary that I haven't watched it. I listened to this guy on a podcast, talk about his experience. was a, a rock climber.

Free Solo, have you heard of this documentary? This guy climbs El Capitan, no ropes, no safety gear or anything, which seems crazy and mind blowing. Like, dude, you must not care about what you, you know, if you live or die. And his perspective was kind of the opposite in that he is so obsessed with doing that and being so technical and doing it at different times of the year and just going through it multiple, multiple times in.

you know, with all his safeties. And then, then when he did it, it was like when he did it without any safety gear or whatever, he was so just dialed in with the mountain. Yeah. Do you find that as well? I do find that as well, because, you know, the more you fly, the more experience you have, the safer you're going to be the more current you are, the more you fly often, you know, the, how frequently do you fly? That's the more you fly, the safer you're going to be in like Alex Honnold and free soloing.

Like rock climbing has different levels of hardness. If his top skill was here, he's free soloing here, you know, ⁓ flying kind of isn't really like that. It's like you're off the ground. You're off the ground. ⁓ there's a guy there's, there's people who've gotten hurt just kiting on the ground and never even on a flight. And now they're in a wheelchair because a gust wind picked them up 10 feet off the ground. So it's a little bit different than climbing, but.

we practice and practice and practice and you know, those that skills that you have, it makes it safe. know? Yeah.

So you said that you go pretty often, like maybe more often than most. Your videos, I've seen videos in summertime, wintertime. Like, do you, and you're still, you're still working full-time welding too. Like, so when do you find the time? Do you schedule this? You know, we talked about the weather being a big part of it. Do you have a certain goal that you set out to achieve each month or how does that go with the frequency? ⁓ I used, I did have a goal and I really was

numbers driven of like getting this many done. And that's when I got hurt. Okay. And, ⁓ I kind of just like let go of that pressure. And I just realized that I'm just going to want to fly every single day. Yeah. It's like making love, you know, you want to make love every day, right? But you don't necessarily get to, I just am so obsessed with the sport that I am always paying attention to the weather. I always know what's happening in the weather throughout the entire state for like the next three or four days.

It's to the point where if somebody at work's like, it's going to do this. I'm like, Oh, really? Did your little emojis tell you that on your iPhone app? Because it's wrong. Um, I'm just so obsessed with it that I want to fly every day. And, uh, I just go out basically any time that I can. And I still work. I work 50 hours a week. work 10 hour days. I work 40, I work 40 to 84 hours a week. And, um, being an oil field welder, if you're not prepared to work.

Like that it's, that might be a downside to welding, but, but that just goes hand in hand with wanting to live life to the max. Like I'm going to work and I'm going to fly and I'm going to skate and I'm going to hang out with my dog and I'm going to hang out with my wife and I'm going to do gnarly things with the kids. And it's just, I'm the type of guy that's always just go, go, go, go, go all the time. You know, always doing something. There's no off season with paragliding either. Like.

You can fly in the winter. The air is really smooth and nice in the winter air is dense when it's cold. You know, there's all sorts of things, usually smooth, awesome, beautiful flights in the winter. Is it warmer up there too? A lot of times here in the winter, like these cold snaps we've been having, like when I just flew off of Orca down by Girdwood, it was like negative 20 on the ground and it was like 10 above five to 10 on top. Yeah. It feels pretty nice up there. We get a lot of inversion sometimes, but sometimes

You take off in the summer and you got your full winter gear on because you're going to go up to six, 7,000 feet flying over the mountains where there's it's cold. So yeah, it's sometimes it's nice. Sometimes it's not. ⁓ Tell me a little bit more about that, that accident that you had. How long ago was that? Like which, kind of injuries resulted from that? Did it change your perspective on getting back on the kite again? You know, just kind of walk me through that. Yeah. So, ⁓

really early in my career. ⁓ well, there's two kinds of paragliding. There's full size wings paragliding where the goal is to gain altitude and fly as long and far as you can. And then there's the other side, which is speed flying, which is probably what people more see on the internet, which is like more, ⁓ visually appealing, you know, going fast, close to the ground, barrel rolls, jumping off the cliffs and stuff.

That's speed flying. It's kind of like the base. It's kind of like skydiving and base jumping. Okay. You know, ⁓ I got into the sport, knowing, knowing I wanted to go speed flying route, but I started training on the full size wings. Cause that's, that's the safer, obvious progression. And, my first year of flying, was getting into speed wings and I was really new and, ⁓ I was kind of a heavier guy. So there was, you know, you're flying even faster and, ⁓

So I went up to bird Ridge and I had flown off at one other time and I went there and I didn't have enough time. The weather was kind of crappy. I was, ⁓ new to the place. I didn't really know where to go. It's a long, horrible hike. ⁓ and the wind was a little bit off, so I decided that I needed to leave. needed to go pick up my wife and, ⁓ I couldn't make it all the way up to the summit. So I was going to take off from this.

horrible, looking back, just horrible, disgusting idea of taking off at this site, this certain spot. And you go there now and I'm like, yeah, boys, I back in my day, went and then it crashed here and it looks completely different. Like somebody made like a little rock hideout thing to like camp in the wind or something. So now it just looks even more dumb. If I'm like telling my bros, I crashed there, but, ⁓ so I decided to try and take off and, ⁓ I've.

Was like five feet off the ground, like two seconds in the flight. I just, I black out and I don't have any more memory of that. But what happened was, is I rag doll tumbled down this like Boulder field rock face thing with rocks, like the size of watermelon's a little bit bigger. ⁓ I smashed my face into a rock and broke my cheekbone and was knocked out for like half an hour. And I, like,

Really hurt my ankle. like ripped out all the plumbing in it is what the doctor said. It probably like dislocated and went back in and I cut my leg, the other leg on my, my thigh, like a foot and a half, long and an inch wide and an inch deep. So it was like a big gash in there. And of course it was opposite legs and I'm up top of bird ridge. And, so I had rag doll down this boulder face.

And, like I said, I took off, I was in the air for like a second. I don't remember anything. I wish I did. ⁓ what probably happened is sometimes you take off and then like the wind isn't right. So like you come down for a second, you do a couple of little ferry steps and then you go again. And I think that happened and I tripped or that happened and I tripped and I clipped a tree, but I rag dolled through some trees. So there's sticks in my wings. The evidence is very telling. ⁓ but when I was rag dolling, I got all hogtied.

In my lines and I was like tied, tied. So when I was first coming back to life, I would like wake up for a second. Realize I can't move. I'm like, shit, I'm paralyzed and like, go back out again. And I'd like wake up again and scream for help and go back down again. And then my wife called me because, I always tell her when I'm going to go. And she knew it was going to be like a two minute flight. And this was like 30 minutes later. She's like, well, what's going on? So she called me and woke me up and, ⁓

I sounded just punch drunk, of course, cause my bell had been rung real good. And she's like FaceTime me now. And I was like, man, this isn't good because like for the first moments of like her calling me and waking me up, I was like, man, my face is wet. Cause I was like head down. So I was like kind of upside down. I was like, why is my face and my hair wet? was cause my face was blown up and I was bleeding all over the place. So I get to FaceTime it and I look like just hell. It looked like a bear attacked me and, ⁓

She kind of started the rescue front and, I got myself out of my lines, realized I was fine. knew my leg was messed up and that my ankle was, I thought my ankles was just completely broken and, kind of stuffed my stuff back together. And I had hiking poles and hiking poles guys bring your hike. I don't care if you're going to Fred Myers, put the hiking poles in your, cause those are crutches. And I started just limping myself off the mountain and, ⁓

When I was coming down off the mountain, I had a brand new jacket on like a puffy jacket and the sleeve had ripped off and, ⁓ all the feathers were just everywhere. So I was like tarred and feathered with like blood and my head was hurting. So I was like concussion, like puking, know? So it was like puke on the ground, blood feathers stuck to me. My face is blowing up. Like I took a rock like this. So it got me in my eyebrow and my face. got a nice scar that the ladies love.

And, I'm hobbling down off this mountain and like I said earlier, I thought the weather was crap. It turned out to be a beautiful day as I'm coming down off this mountain. I'm just hobbling down. It took me like two, three hours to get down and I run into another pilot who's on his way up and he's like, dude, let me help you. Let me take that pack off your back. Cause I had my full pack on my back and, he called an ambulance for me and I was like, my, my wife might've already done that. He's like, I don't care. We're just, we're calling.

And, ⁓ but I hobbled and he helped me down. Thank you, Micah, Micah, my boy, ⁓ hobbled off the mountain and got into the ambulance down there. And it was such a beautiful day. The paramedics were taking pictures of like the sun and the trees and all this stuff. And I'm like puking over here and like getting fentanyl shots so I can live stuff like that. And, yeah.

When we got to the hospital, it was like a movie. There was like a panel of doctors, like, cause all they heard was paragliding pilot coming in. So they thought I was like, going to have a brain bleed and all this stuff. And, um, there was one nurse that had a plate of shots. She's like, when's your last tetanus shot? I was like, uh, boom, boom, boom. she shoots me up. Like, she's like, you're good. And,

Yeah, it was like, it was like gray's anatomy. There's like eight or 10 doctors in a line waiting for me to get wheeled down the hallway. And I was like, what's, what's up guys? Of course I'm on, on a nice cocktail. gave me an ambulance and I was very lucky, lucky that, ⁓ had a good high quality helmet on that broken half and, ⁓ my head is completely fine. I just got in a concussion from smashing my face into the rock and, you know, hit some other rocks too, but.

My ankle, there was no broken bones, but it, I've broken my ankle before and I would have wished I broke my ankle, but the recovery and the pain and everything. And, I, they stitched up my leg and, ⁓ I was on my merry way after that. And, ⁓ I've always had like, just get back on the horse mentality and I was out there trying to fly again, like three weeks later with like stitches in my face. And it was right before Halloween.

And, even better. Even better. So I was drinking back then. So we, ⁓ we went out to the bar and these old timers, I like disgusting old dive bars, you know, being an old dirty welder. And, ⁓ there's these guys would be like, you know, you're a little early for Halloween son. I'm like, no, this is real. I've got stitches in my face and my eyebrow. And, and, and yeah, that, that moment definitely changed my life for the better. It slowed me down. Paragliding everybody who ever crashed paragliding says.

They're glad they crashed because it slowed them down. And I'm just lucky to be, ⁓ alive, have my full mental capacity somewhat. I'm fine. You know, I'm just, that's just a joke, but, the H and to be walking on my own feet, cause most nine times out of 10, it would have been fatal for sure. got super lucky.

That's crazy, You know, listening to that story, you bring up something that I didn't really consider and that's you're hiking your butt to the top of these mountains in order to jump off. It's not like you're just driving somewhere, pull off and like, here we go. Maybe there's places like that, but at least in this situation, you crashed and it was like, now I got to get myself out of here. Yeah. Now you're on top of Bird Ridge. That's a hard hike for most people. Yeah. That's yeah.

It was rough. Dang. But no trepidation going back out there. No hesitancy to be like. It made me want to go more because I didn't want that to define my paragliding career. I've always cared about the things I've done and I've always like been really passionate about it. And I just had to get back. You know, I, if anything, it just made me fly even harder. I flew more after that probably. That's awesome, dude.

same thing with after I saw ⁓ Josh Josh Randich ⁓ when he, when he had his fatal accident, I just the very next day for like days in a row, I was just pounding it out to clear the head and just to just to get back on it, you know, so you were in the air when you saw, ⁓ that guy go down. ⁓ I took off first and I landed and I turned around and watched and it was, I was probably two, three miles away, so i'm watching a dot.

You know, I didn't see a lot, but I saw it. yeah, that was a bad day. That's right. That was a day.

⁓ It's cool your perspective on getting back on the horse again. Man, so many people I talked to on this show that have went through crazy stuff, I, know, listening to your story, think if you know, Bridget Watkins, she was a musher. She went through some crazy experiences and they did a rod with her dog, dogs almost died and was like, no, I'm, we're getting back up and we're going to do this thing, even though I'm terrified and working through that. And

I talked to Tyler Johnson a few weeks ago, got mauled by a bear and was like, I'm not going to let this keep me from going out and doing what I love and being in the woods. I think what's really cool is that there's so many people here and maybe it's just because this is where we live or maybe it's there's people like this all over, all over the United States. But what fascinates me about your story and the story of so many others is when they face something that it's like, could be a stopping point. They're like, no, we're going to keep going.

Yeah. It's a crossroads. gotta, yeah. I of make the decision. There's a lot of people who start paragliding and they just have like a scary moment of like bumpy air and that ruins it. They're done, you know? And you know, some it's not for everybody, you know? Yeah. That's really cool, man. Good for you for getting back on the horse. Yeah. At that point. Um, so you said that was early on, right? Yeah. That was in like my, my second year. Okay. I'd been fine for like a year and some, like a month or two.

At that point. Okay. What kind of places you've shared a couple of them, where are your go-to spots? Are you always looking for new places to go? ⁓ Now in my career, I'm looking for new places, but after my accident, I kind of really doubled down on skills. So I kind of was ⁓ always going to places that were kind of like within a half hour to hour drive and just hammering out lots of laps and ⁓ being in Alaska, mean,

An hour away from anywhere in Anchorage, you're at world-class places anyways. It's not. It's not like you're missing out on anything. ⁓ and even like me saying hammering out on local spots, like, like, like that, our local spots are nuts. know, they're nothing to, to not think are awesome. Yeah. You don't want to downplay it, but, ⁓ I definitely know some people who, ⁓

fly up here and they're really all about flying new places all the time. And those guys really inspired me a lot. Like Lesha and Griffin, shout out guys. Like you guys are rad and Nathan Webb, man, that dude is always making new spots. But, ⁓ now in my career, I've kind of like, I've kind of always never been satisfied with myself, you know? So was like, we need to build skills. We need to be really, really, really good. Don't worry about.

trying to go find new places, you're already doing all sorts of cool, awesome places. And, but now in my career, I'm trying to do some new fun things. Cool. Well, for myself and the, you know, thousands of people that, that follow you and, and watch your adventures up in the air and with pickles, I mean, it's awesome, dude. It's we love it. Yeah. Some of us I know are living vicariously through you, in these experiences. And I think there's plenty of people out there too, that are like, I might.

go give this a shot, know, and experience it. So that's really cool. Yeah, DM me, I'll help you. That's awesome. So let's transition into some other cool stuff that you're into. You mentioned early on inline skating, you were into that. ⁓ I see videos of you ice skating, rollerblading, like that's still a part of your life and what you're doing and you're enjoying stuff on the ground too. So do you want to talk about, you know, what you do with that? And then Pickles is also in on that too.

Yeah. I'm just a skater kid that's never going to grow up. ⁓ I skate every day at lunch, you know, like I only have a 30 minute lunch. Most of these videos that you see, I get them done in a 30 minute lunch and I drive there and I skate for 15 minutes and then I leave. Like, I'm just obsessed with like having fun every day. That's awesome. And, the skating has just been, I've been skating for like almost 25 years now.

And it's just been like my daily thing. It's just my thing. Like, I don't know who I would be without skating. ⁓ I liked skating any way you can get it. Long distance speed skating, aggressive inline skating is my background. And I got the new skate park right next to my work. I'll go there like daily. ⁓ my new thing is skate joring You know, you see people ski joring cross country skiing with the dog. I hate cross country skiing.

I hate skiing. If paragliders flew sideways, I would have never touched skis in my entire life. I hate skis. are so lame. ⁓ but the skate joring is so much fun and we do that all the time daily. ⁓ and yeah, that's kind of like my latest jam right now is going out with the dog and just, we go so fast and it's so fun and, ⁓ everybody should try it for sure. You've been to some pretty cool.

I know you're in Anchorage. There's some places that you go there, Alaska has some pretty amazing locations to go like mountain ice skating. Is that what it's called? Wild ice skating or Nordic skating. Nordic skating. Talk about that. Like what opportunities are available for people that are into that here? What have you experienced? dude, it's the best place in the world for wild ice skating, you know.

Yeah, it's just, that's kind of something that's developed like in the past couple of years for me. ⁓ I've kind of always gone ice skating on wild ice, like maybe a couple of times a year, but now I'm like really heavily into it. And, ⁓ there's so many cool rad spots. ⁓ what really got me into it was, ⁓ there's this river behind my shop, Campbell Creek, and I just saw people zip by it one day. And that was like, you're skating on the river.

And then I skated every day for like two months. That's awesome. I had on lunch break, but, ⁓ yeah, we have such a good community of wild ice skaters up here and, ⁓ really anti gatekeeping, like down to lower 48. It's gatekeeping is when you have this cool spot and you don't tell anybody about it. You know, we're like the opposite of that. And, because there's just so much, so much cool stuff to enjoy and, ⁓

And then we have some really good maintained rinks here in Anchorage too. And all over the place where you can go ice skate every day, which means if you can go ice skate every day, you can roller blade every day in the summer, which you can just live that life. Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm skating almost every day and paragliding almost every day too. That's the dream for you brother. Yeah. He found the right spot. The dream, the dream dream is we go and we skate with the dog, you know, once a day.

We fly the speed wing once a day and we fly the big wing once a day. That's, that's kind of the real jam. That's awesome. ⁓ so it sounds like I had a question in here just about like the difference in experience between your motivation to go and, and paraglide versus, you know, the enjoyment that you get out of, ⁓ skating. is there a different attitude? Is there a different approach? Like.

You know, like, I'm going to go do this today. Cause I feel this way, or I'm going to do this today. Like what's your, it's totally like that. Um, I listened to how my body feels a lot. Like if I feel good, I'm going to hike flat top three times and go to the gym, you know, stuff like that. I'm very active, but you know, sometimes the ice is just good and you need to get it before it snows in three days. And then you're opportunistic Yeah. You gotta, you gotta take those opportunities. And sometimes the wind is just.

crank in the right way and you gotta go surfing with the boys down at Kincaid Bluffs and fly for three hours with Eagles right there next to you. You know, you just, you just feel the day out and there's always fun to be had up here. You know, they've never understood why people don't do anything with their lives. You Yeah. You are definitely inspiration to me. It makes me feel that way. Like, what am I doing? Why am I running this rad podcast? mean, yeah, I'm doing this too, but the more, the cooler people that I talk to, ⁓ I'm just like, I got to

block some time out to go and experience some of the stuff that people are doing. ⁓ there's this quote that, ⁓ I heard it's from Jeremy Jones, his big pro snowboarder guy. You know, he told his kids, figure out what you'd like to do and what you love to do and do it often. The world will be a better place for it. And man, that kind of changed my life. Like, especially because in my previous marriage, there wasn't a, I didn't have that many much freedom to go do the things I wanted to do because she just did not want me to.

be that kind of person. And, ⁓ once I like fell into that part of myself of like being more, you know, somebody willing to do activities like that every day, it just made me a better person and all the people around me noticed. it's just, that's the best person I can be as somebody who's gone skating at lunch, planning to go fly it later and, hanging out my wife and, you don't fight those urges to be that person.

You know, lot of people think they can't do that. They can't, Oh, I can't go. I can't take a little wing, ball it up, throw it in the air and then jump off a cliff at flat top. I can, yes, you can. You just might need some training, but you can totally do any of those things. And if you do those things, you love, maybe it's knitting. If you need the knit, go knit and the world will be a better place for it. Yeah. That's freaking awesome, man. Got me pumped for it. I hope you pump other people up too. Um, so you started this.

just because you were on your own journey. You're coming off of this divorce, you're looking for something, you know, to get back, you know, to learn something, to do something that was gonna put you in a better head space and you found paragliding and you kind of launched off into that. And then... joke. I didn't even catch it. I didn't even catch it. But along the way, you've kind of amassed this freaking following of people that are like, this is awesome.

⁓ I was looking at your Instagram, your Instagram alone, you have like about 130,000 people following you on there, which is mind blowing for me, who's rocking like two and a half people on Instagram currently. But that amount of people is Fairbanks, Juneau, Wasilla, and the entire Kenai Peninsula population combined, which is a

crazy number to kind of comprehend. Did you anticipate that at all when you started this? Absolutely not. I didn't try for any of this to happen. I was just a skater kid making videos and something took off and really like I was against filming my own stuff for a long time because in skydiving there's a quote that nobody has been killed more by GoPros and girlfriends on the ground because you're trying to show off.

Yeah. You're going to do something dumb for the camera, for your girlfriend or for your buddies. And you're going to go in, going in is hitting the ground and dying. You're going to go in, you're going to get hurt. You're going to do something. And, ⁓ like I bought a GoPro hero nine and, ⁓ there was like a 12 out by the time I even opened the box. Cause I was just like, Scared to, ⁓ do something dumb for the camera. And, ⁓ like when I crashed.

I thought everything was going to be fine. I thought I could, I thought I could trust myself and trust my own instincts. And then I kind of didn't trust my own self for awhile. And then when I started filming again and posting stuff, ⁓ it, it just blew up immediately. And, you know, people got a soft spot for dogs. And when pickles is about to take off, there is nothing cooler than watching a dog get just amped to do some gnarly things. And you're like, wow.

They're going to go fly and that dog is stoked. Just, just pumped, you know? So I understand why it's popular, but I didn't, I had no idea it would be like this. Honestly. there a certain moment, a certain video that it was like overnight or was this like a slow burn to a ton of people following you? It was kind of overnight. Honestly. ⁓ I had posted a couple of videos and, ⁓

I kind of didn't post any of the flying dog stuff for a little bit. And then I made one video and it got like two or 3 million views like instantly. And I was like, Whoa, Holy. And, ⁓ then I started posting more of my other flying. And I, at first I was very self-conscious. I didn't think people would really want to watch and, ⁓ but I wanted to watch it. I was like, I'm like trying to find people.

doing the things I'm doing, I'm not finding it. That means people want to see it. And if, ⁓ if I'm out there trying to find it, that means maybe other people are trying also. they, I mean, they're going to think it's cool, but I thought what I was doing wasn't very rad, you know, very self-conscious about it. And now I'm like completely different to where I don't give a shit. I like making the video. I watch my own videos all the time because I like them. And really it's for me and,

But, but yeah, I was posting very small amount and, and then I posted and I started posting more and more. And then I posted a video of us, of me and pickles flying off of bird Ridge. And that one really took off. And I was like, you know what? We're going to just, we're just going to fall into it. We're going to see what happens. We're going to have fun with it. Do more, take the dog flying more. I used to just take the dog flying all the time and not bring my camera at all, because it's just for me anyways. And, uh, yeah, it's just.

really blown up. That's crazy. It's unintentional, but I'm very grateful to be here talking to rad people like you. I mean, it changed my life completely. It's so cool. And I'm glad you did it. know, it's like people are doing cool stuff every single day. And there's people out there that are looking for it. And then there's people that are just like, like you're saying, I was just doing this thing that was cool and I liked and I enjoyed and doing it mostly just for myself. Yeah. And it turns out.

Other people think it's pretty rad. And that's like my advice to anybody who's like, whatever your thing is, like, if you think you want to post it just to show, like your two friends, have do it. People are going to like it. If don't be so hard on yourself. A lot of people are very hard on themselves and sell themselves short. And if you want to like post rad videos, just do it. Who cares? Like at the end of the day, how's it going to hurt you? Yeah. You know, it's true.

what's been the good and bad of having your, you know, a little portion of your life out there in the social media world? It's really all been good. nothing really bad has happened, would say, except for some haters who think the dog doesn't want to do this and that dog is scared. He said no. And I'm like, you don't know dogs at all, but, really it's all been good. Yeah. Met a lot of friends.

Do people find you out in the park or out in public? Is that, is that pickles? that Jake and the flying pickles? Yeah. couple there's been like three times people have come up and been like, are you Jake and pickles? And I'm like, yeah. Um, but you know, it's small town Alaska too. It's like, it's like people are like, can't be and just, know, but I get a lot of, we get stared at a lot. A lot of people will take pictures of us when we're skate joring because not too many people do that on skates.

But yeah, we're starting to get recognized in public. Cool. And it's rad. That's awesome, dude. If you recognize me, come, I'll take a picture of you guys. I love it all. Uh, do you feel any weird pressure to like, do you like push the limits or do something new now that you have people following you? Or are you just like, I'm just going to keep doing this? Absolutely not. I, those, those feelings and those intentions, that's how you get hurt in our sport. Um, yeah, you just gotta do what's right at that moment.

And, ⁓ I have a lot of people trying to work with me now and, ⁓ they don't really understand that it's condition based and I don't mind telling them no and no and no when they want to go because I'm the one flying off, you know? So I don't, I try to not let it influence me. Other people are trying to work with us, but if anybody wants to work with us, we'll do it. I love it. Like this stuff. love it. That's smart. ⁓

What, what are you excited about right now? Like, know, with, we're in the middle or yeah, in the middle of January looking ahead at the next year. Like, is there any exciting trips that you're going to take or projects that you got brewing? know that recently some sponsorships have like come out of the, come out of the woodwork, which is pretty cool. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah. Uh, just got hooked up with Ermine skates and I am so pumped about that. And, um, AK Mountain dog dog treats, super rad people.

Very stoked that just happened like very, a couple of days ago. Uh, we're there's talking in the works with, um, some other people. don't want to really spoil it. Uh, some wing manufacturers and other avenues, um, you know, making some childhood dreams come true for sure. Uh, and just really trying to kind of be professional about it. And the, that's really fun too. Like taking this thing you do for fun and.

being professional about it, when you work with other people, it just makes some magic. know, like, like what we're doing here now, like this is some awesome stuff. And I like taking it a professional stance towards fun. know, I take fun seriously. Cool. think that's going to open up a lot of doors for you too, with that, having that mentality for sure. So, but at end of the day, I don't care. I'm with if.

There was no cameras, no sponsors. I'm just going to keep doing me. I'm going to keep flying a hundred times a year or more. And it's just what it is. Any desire to go and paraglide outside of Alaska? Any ⁓ spots that you're like, it'd be really dope to go there one day. I just really want to like go to certain places to fly with those people that are there. Like the Utah boys are just rippers, ⁓ down in Chelan, Washington.

Rippers to other, I just want to go fly with cool people. Like we have such cool mountains here that it's like, how could you want more? mean, there's always cool places to go, but like, ⁓ really, ⁓ I just do what's good that day where it's good that day. And, and yeah, like things I'm excited for in the future, like this summer, I don't, I don't really have too many plans. just plan to fly as much as I can and things will happen. ⁓ one.

One plan I have is I want to go, ⁓ like sky camping is what we call it. Like it's called vivwack and, ⁓ fly Viv and like you fly and you, ⁓ full Viv. Wow. It's a French thing. There's all sorts of French names, but I want to go fly cross country with the dog and with all my camping gear out in hatcher and go around, stay a couple of nights, fly around. Cool. That's what I want. That's my goal for the summer is to.

Do some of that and I want to start flying a smaller speed wing, which is, know, spicier. Okay. Yeah. Cool. ⁓ we talked about your Instagram, where else can people follow you? I'm on Facebook also. Okay. Just at Jake long. Anything on YouTube? No, not yet. I've been, you know, of course everybody and their mom says you need to get on YouTube. And I'm like, well, yeah, I probably should. Yeah. But

You know, takes a lot of time. It's a lot of work that at all that stuff. I'm my, my main focus is out there doing this stuff. know, having fun. have a lot of fun editing videos and stuff, but the main focus is just getting out there and doing it. I'm sure I'm going to get on YouTube eventually. I should do it this winter, but yeah, we'll see. the fun is the most important part though. Yeah. Living the life is the most important part. So what is your advice to someone that's listening? They're living in Alaska. They're listening to you share these stories.

And whether it's paragliding, some other extreme sport they're doing, what is like your takeaway advice for them after hearing you talk about both the highs, the lows, know, the getting into it, the experiencing the accident. Like what is the takeaway that you want them to hear? Whatever your sport is, just do it. Whatever you want to do, just go after it. If you want to go fly fixed wing planes and you want to fly float panes or get a motorcycle or start painting, just do it. There's no reason not to.

And you're only doing yourself a disservice by not doing those things. And don't, don't sell yourself short. You can do those things. You can go base jumping. All it is is jumping off of a thing and going like this, you know, like it might, it might seem that easy, but you know, there's some things you gotta do, anybody can do anything. Anybody can come out flying with me. When I was training to fly, it was like a group of people. I was the only one that was under the age of 55, you know, like, and

anybody can do this stuff. Anybody can do what they want to do. You know, just go live your life. You gotta go live, man. Yeah, yeah. Was that Matthew McConaughey? I think he said that. Yeah. You just gotta go live. Well, man, I'm so thankful you came down from Anchorage to hang out with me and do this. ⁓ I love it when people come in person. The virtual stuff is cool, too. We live in a really big state, so I get it's not always like practical for people to travel down. But the more that I do this, the more people are like,

Yeah, let's do it. It sounds awesome. Let's do this in person. And that's my heart behind it is to be able to kind of see more than the 90 second reels. We were talking about that. You know, I see that on Instagram and it's like you see a glimpse of someone's life and you're like, gosh, that is so amazing. But you're only able to really share your story in these little clips and to be able to sit down with someone and get the full story about what led you to do this. And then like your heart behind it, it makes it that much more special and rad.

So yeah, thanks for having me man. Totally love doing stuff. So I always ask every guest that comes on the show This is the state I'm in so it's all about Alaskans about Alaskans doing cool stuff. That's why you're here and ⁓ Or Alaskans that have a special area of expertise and Do you have any suggestions and someone that you'd like to see on the show Chris Reynolds for sure? Okay Yeah, he's this paragliding instructor up here and

He, ⁓ he's always kite surfing and para motoring and para gliding and doing all sorts of crazy stuff on ice skates and kites. And he's just, I want him to adopt me so he can be my grandpa. ⁓ there's this, this another skater guy that I'm always skating with old man, Jim, he would be probably a cool one too. ⁓ he's the only guy who skates more than me that I know of. He probably skates like a thousand miles a week.

Like he's just always getting after it. Um, Paxson from Ermine skates, the owner of Ermine skates. He's super rad dude who, really like pioneered the sport of Nordic skating up here in a wild skating and showed it to the world. And I'm excited to help show that to other people to help blow up skate joring. Um, there's countless people, uh, so many rad people up here. I've always thought that like our local new show needs to have like a.

old gnarly Alaskan dudes section where like once a week they just like interview somebody sick. And you gotta be the guy to that. That'd sweet. I know these people that have grown up in this state and doing like the stuff before the internet existed, you know, those are the real, those are the real goats for sure. ⁓ Sweet man. Well, I'll definitely keep those in mind as I, as I continue on with this. I told you earlier, speaking of skating, ⁓

knowing that I was going to come talk to you, I had the opportunity to go ice skating for the first time, which I'm embarrassed to admit. I've lived in Alaska for like 14, 15 years or something like that and have never went ice skating before. Taken my kids to go, but I was more like making sure they didn't fall and like was there with them. um, it was, it was a cool experience to be able to go and get out there. And I was like, impressed with how fast I picked it up. You know, it was like, uh, probably it's been 20 something years since I put.

skates of any kind on, let alone to put on some ice skates and go out and do it. So it's something that watching you out there has definitely encouraged me to do and take the opportunity. I'm on the lookout for some skates right now to go and just get out there, man, and do it. People like you are definitely inspiring to people like me that have a tendency to kind of stay indoors and not go and experience all that we have available to us to experience. So a lot of fun to be had.

For sure, man. Well, anything else that we missed? Anything else that you want to cover that we didn't get a chance to talk about? I don't know, man. We did such a good job. It's been super fun. glad you came. It's been a good time. I hope you enjoy the peninsula and you're down here for the weekend. Yeah, we're going to make the best of it. Warmed up a little bit. So we'll see what happens. But Jake Long, otherwise known as Jake and the Flying Pickles, so much for coming in today. Yeah, thanks for having me, man. I'd come back any time.

Awesome.